Members of the Syracuse University Alumni Association have introduced new plans to help improve strained communication between the association and administration.

The SUAA and the university recently collaborated on a decision to restructure the Office of Alumni Relations by creating an assistant vice president position and removing the executive director title. The assistant vice president of the alumni office will now report to members of SU’s administration. The two groups are in the process of filling the position through an executive search firm.

The SUAA felt the promotion of the “key alumni relations position” would help enhance the SUAA’s overall efforts, said Richard Thompson, chairman of the Board of Trustees, in an email. Thompson said the decision was a part of an ongoing exploration of the Office of Alumni Relations, one that the SUAA and the Board of Trustees have been working on since the beginning of 2013.

The collaboration follows recent conflict regarding the SUAA’s involvement in the chancellor search committee.

In an April 17 Daily Orange letter to the editor, former Alumni Association President Brian Spector said he felt the Board of Trustees and university administration held the alumni board in “low regard,” and also noted frustrations regarding the association’s absence from the chancellor search committee. Spector said in his letter that these tensions caused him to resign in February — five months shy of completing his two-year term.

Spector declined to comment for this article.

In an April 24 Daily Orange letter to the editor, Thompson said members of the Alumni Association Board of Trustees were not involved in previous chancellor search committees. The exclusion wasn’t intentional, he said, and members of the chancellor search committee were not appointed to represent any particular organization.

Despite the lack of SUAA presence within the committee, SU officials like Thompson and current SUAA president, Laurie Taishoff, said they feel communication has improved and alumni will have input in the current chancellor search process.

“The current committee has very strong representation from the alumni community,” Thompson said in his letter. “11 of its twenty-two members are SU alumni.”

A member of the search committee also met with Taishoff and members of the SUAA executive committee to hear suggestions, Thompson said. He said the Board of Trustees also urges alumni members to share their input on the search through the chancellor search website.

Open informational meetings were held in regions with strong alumni concentrations, such as Central New York, Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Atlanta and San Francisco, Taishoff said in an email. These meetings gave opportunities for feedback on the chancellor search, she said.

Thompson said he thinks the current communication between these groups is strong. The SUAA president is a sitting member of board meetings, he said, which ensures that the SUAA has a voice at the highest level.

Taishoff said in an email that she plans to continue strengthening the relationship between the SUAA and the administration by listening to alumni input and participating in joint projects with the university.

“In any organization, there are always opportunities to make continuous improvement in both activities and communication,” she said. “My goal is for us to be the best Alumni Association that we can be.”

Although the SUAA board does not have a specific representative on the search committee, Taishoff said she is confident that alumni voices will be heard during the search process.

Published on June 3, 2013 at 4:13 pm

Contact Annie: apalme05@syr.edu